‘The president is not OK. He seems off’: The Weeknight on Trump’s erratic social spree

0:01 THE PRESIDENT IS NOT OKAY.

0:02 HE SEEMS OFF.

0:03 AH, I WOULD SAY THAT HE DOES SEEM OFF AND HIS BEHAVIOR,

0:08 YOU KNOW, LOOK, I WILL CONFESS, YOU KNOW,

0:10 PEOPLE WILL FOCUS ON THESE TWITTER STORIES AND and some of these other examples,

0:12 I've watched more than 650 of his rallies in his speeches.

0:16 And I was paying very close attention to his Twitter habits

0:18 and his social media habits in his first term compared to his second term.

0:21 To your question, he's off.

0:22 And here, it's not just in the way that he talks the how

0:26 he engages with an audience how he engages at the room it's also

0:29 in his habits he's already posting more than twice the average that he did

0:33 in this first term and then you have these outlier examples and I always

0:36 think back to what happened in december where we posted 160 times over

0:40 the span of five hours one night i mean it wasn't you would take

0:43 away your mom's facebook account and her phone after a certain time without

0:47 a doubt and so there are

0:48 these flare-ups they're just happening more REGULARLY NOW.

0:50 AND YEAH, YOU CAN HAVE SOME PEOPLE,

0:52 AND I THINK THERE IS A PART OF THE NEWS MEDIA

0:55 THAT ACTS IN SOME WAYS JUST LIKE THE DIEHARD MAGA PEOPLE.

0:57 THEY THINK HE'S ALWAYS DOING FOURTH DIMENSIONAL CHESTS.

0:59 AND THERE IS NO STRATEGY HERE AS WE'RE SEEING WITH THIS GUY DOESN'T DO STRATEGY.

1:05 HE'S TACTICAL, HE'S GUT VISCERAL REACTION.

1:07 HIS GUT RIGHT NOW IS KIND OF ROTTEN AND HE

1:09 IS IN EXISTING IN A LANDSCAPE LIKE TRUTH SOCIAL WHICH

1:13 IS WAY MORE WEIRD and distorted than even Twitter was

1:16 back when he was using it aggressively during his first term.

1:20 So there is something off and different,

1:21 and it doesn't have to be a question of his mental health.

1:24 It could just be his emotions.

1:25 It doesn't have to be some big plot that he had a stroke or something.

1:28 He could just be being really emotionally overwhelmed and social

1:32 media with all this AI is breaking his brain.

1:35 Let's put a pin in that because I want to know

1:38 how it shapes your thinking that today the president decided to weigh

1:44 in on just how difficult cognitive tests really are and what would

1:48 happen if any of us were asked to take a cognitive test.

1:51 Take a listen.

1:52 I think everyone in think of this has ever taken one.

2:10 How do you think Biden would have done?

2:13 I don't think he might not have gotten that first

2:16 question right anyway and Obama would have done poorly.

2:22 Why has he taken three?

2:24 You don't take them unless you need to.

2:29 And it's a great talking point right for him.

2:32 He gets to go ahead and point to this example,

2:34 but no one's ever taken it before.

2:35 Why?

2:36 Would be the next question that people have.

2:38 But he's sitting in a room full of people

2:39 and he gets to go out and tell this story.

2:41 I'm the only one that's taken and I keep

2:42 getting a perfect score on this very basic test.

2:44 That's to decide if you have, you know, basic level competency.

2:48 And I think, you know, then he's going to keep and that's part of this.

2:51 Some of this.

2:51 And I think we just can't ignore it.

2:53 This guy has been behaving the same way since the 80s.

2:55 He's in some of these things is muscle memory.

2:57 It's like a twitch.

2:58 You know, and so this is what he does.

3:00 It's marketing.

3:00 And this is one example.

3:02 And he's going to keep riding that horse as long as he

3:05 can because it reinforces the story that he is mentally well.

3:07 And I do think there's something to your question

3:09 in that he is sensitive about the critique that he's off, though.

3:12 He doesn't like the idea that people think he's aging, losing his game.

3:15 And I think that's a tie-in with a lot of the images he posts.

3:18 It's not just that you could have all kinds of Photoshop stuff.

3:21 He likes the AI and there's been some reporting on this a few

3:24 months ago because it does make him look vigorous and youthful, right?

3:28 It makes him seem a little...

3:29 It's just like what he looks like but it's a little softer.

3:32 You know, it's like always being on a Zoom meeting with that filter.

3:35 He's living life that way.

3:35 He's a morbidly obese 80-year-old man.

3:37 And so that's...

3:38 You can't AI that.

3:39 I mean, that's the reality of it.

3:43 But I want to go back to something you said because

3:47 I think it strikes to this idea of a muscle memory.

3:51 So you're talking about Donald Trump's muscle memory.

3:52 I want to talk about the muscle memory of our press corps that cover him.

3:56 And you touched on it just a moment ago in your answer,

3:59 that there is within that ecosystem a portion of folks who are playing

4:06 this or writing about this as if there's some strategery going on here.

4:11 This is not.

4:12 This is the musings of a man who's losing and has lost

4:16 a big step from where he was just six years ago, folks.

4:20 So that's number one.

4:22 And the Reuters polling,

4:22 there's Reuters Ipsos polling that says exactly that the American

4:26 people are saying exactly what you just said.

4:28 I just want to underscore that.

4:29 No, no, and I'm glad you did because it's an important part of this because

4:33 it really then shows up when you have others who are not telling this story,

4:40 that are not covering this aspect.

4:43 Because I can and damn well assert to you at this table

4:47 tonight that if that man sitting in the White House was Joe Biden,

4:50 and we saw what they did with Joe Biden, when Joe Biden,

4:53 because of his physical difficulties with his knees

4:57 or whatever would stumble or walk slowly.

5:00 They were damn near ready to put him in an old,

5:03 you know, a senior citizen facility.

5:06 Let's put it that way.

5:07 Right?

5:07 But this is not the case here.

5:09 How?

5:11 When you're looking at this, what do you see?

5:13 What does it say to you that you've

5:15 got this bifurcation of storylines about this president?

5:18 I think went to the point about the press corps.

5:20 One thing that I OK if they don't want to cover

5:22 this stuff in a serious way or ask these questions about his health.

5:24 OK, fine.

5:26 What I don't what I see them doing, though,

5:27 is something really disturbing that he the amount of times that he says,

5:31 I don't know to very basic questions has shot through the roof.

5:35 If you look at his last cabinet meeting,

5:37 every question he was asked of substance,

5:39 he immediately kicked it to somebody else to answer that question.

5:42 He has dramatically increased the number of times that he says, I don't know.

5:45 So I don't care how vigorous he seems when he calls you and he's working

5:49 the phones or you think even if you buy into this idea that it's strategy,

5:53 why doesn't he know answers to very basic

5:54 questions that the president should know answers to?

5:56 Why is he saying that a lot more often than he says?

5:59 Why is when he's asked about things that he did

6:01 even or tweets that he posted just a few hours ago,

6:04 he says he doesn't remember, which is part of the things that's happening.

6:07 And that's the part, that's the tell,

6:09 is that they're also not following some of these bigger storylines.

6:13 You know, I remember all the reporting when Joe Biden changed his shoes,

6:16 when he started wearing more comfortable shoes.

6:18 Wow, can you believe that?

6:20 He's wearing extra padding in his shoes.

6:22 You know, for somebody that already had diagnosed neuropathy,

6:25 and we all knew it because they were at least transparent about it,

6:28 yet this guy says I don't know more often than he's ever said,

6:30 and is reasonably expected of a president, and no one's reporting on that.

6:33 There's a clip that will illustrate exactly